By KARI HASKELL

Published: January 11, 2009

Around the 10th of the month, Margaret Callahan maneuvers a small cart down six flights of stairs to the supermarket one block from her one-bedroom apartment in Astoria, Queens.

As she pushes the cart slowly down each aisle in the store, she surveys her choices, checks prices and calculates how much she can afford on the $74 that she receives monthly in food stamps.

She also considers her diabetes, she said. ''If I eat stuff I'm not supposed to, my body acts up right away.''

''I buy some vegetables, milk, fruit, cold cuts,'' she said. ''I try to buy stuff on sale as much as I can.''

At the register, she swipes her food stamp debit card and taps in a PIN. (Paper coupons were replaced with electronic benefits and debit cards starting in 1994.)

Food stamps, plus $1,200 a month from Social Security, is all she has to live on. ''I have no savings, no bonds, no C.D.'s. Nothing.''

Ms. Callahan, 64, who is single, had to stop working in 1992 because of poor health. She had been in the accounts receivable department at Smith Barney for nine and a half years. ''I just couldn't deal with asthma attacks -- I was in the hospital all the time,'' she said. In addition to diabetes and severe asthma, she has high cholesterol.

''I have good medical coverage, but I have to pay a co-pay,'' she said. After paying $563.96 for rent and her utilities, she said she has barely enough to cover co-payments for medications, leaving little for emergency or discretionary purposes.

''My check doesn't go so far -- it only stretches so much.''

More often than not, the food stamps do not last the month, she said. Then she dips into her emergency pocket money. On occasion, she says, she borrows from friends. ''It is not much -- I borrow $20 here, $20 there, but that is it.''

''But I have to pay them back, and they never have to come look for me; I always go looking for them,'' she said.

Living on such a tight budget, she has come to depend on her church. In the 29 years that she has lived in the apartment, she has attended St. Joseph's Roman Catholic Church in Astoria. Every Thursday night, she is there, her cart in tow, to receive a bag of food: canned soup, macaroni, spaghetti, fruit and sometimes a loaf of bread. She has also relied on a food pantry, run by Catholic Charities, Diocese of Brooklyn and Queens, in the Queens North Community Center. Catholic Charities is one of the seven agencies supported by The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund.

''I don't go there very often; only at the point my back is against the wall,'' she said.

Because of the economy, more people are visiting the food pantry, said Sha-nae Anderson, Ms. Callahan's caseworker.

Ms. Anderson added that money from the Neediest Cases Fund helped Catholic Charities provide people in distress with emergency money so they do not have to choose between eating and paying bills. Last summer, it was a choice Ms. Callahan feared she might have to make.

Ms. Callahan's asthma requires that she use air-conditioning during the hot months. She managed to pay her high summer Con Edison bill but not her entire Verizon bill.

Ms. Anderson used $123.99 from the Neediest Cases Fund to pay for Ms. Callahan's telephone arrears.